This application claims the benefit of Japanese Patent Applications No. 2001-257043 filed Aug. 27, 2001, and No. 2002-242528 filed Aug. 22, 2002, in the Japanese Patent Office, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to image forming apparatuses, program updating methods and recording media, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus which rewrites a program stored in a storage section by updating data received via network, a program updating method for updating the program by the updating data received via the network, and a computer-readable recording medium which stores a computer program for causing a computer to update the program by such a program updating method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, apparatuses such as a printing apparatus, a copying machine, a scanner and a facsimile machine, were set up independently. But recently, an image forming apparatus (hereinafter referred to a composite apparatus) has been developed which includes the functions of a plurality of apparatuses such as the printing apparatus, the copying machine, the scanner and the facsimile machine. The composite apparatus has a display section, a printing section, an image pickup section and the like provided within a single housing. In addition, the composite apparatus is provided with three kinds of software respectively corresponding to the printing apparatus, copying machine and the facsimile machine, and the composite apparatus is operated as the printing apparatus, the copying machine, the scanner or the facsimile machine by switching the kind of software.
In the conventional composite apparatus, the software is provided independently for the functions of each of the printing apparatus, the copying machine, the scanner and the facsimile machine and stored in a non-rewritable read only memory (ROM), and this ROM is mounted on a controller board to realize the various of functions.
For this reason, if a function is to be modified or added in the conventional composite apparatus, a new ROM which stores a program reflecting the modification or addition of the new function must be prepared, and the ROM mounted on the controller board must be replaced by this new ROM. As a result, it requires a troublesome operation to carry out the program updating process because of the need to prepare the new ROM which stores the updated program (software) and the need to replace the hardware, that is, to replace the ROM by the new ROM.
Accordingly, a composite apparatus has been proposed, which stores the programs for realizing the functions of each of the printing apparatus, the copying machine, the scanner and the facsimile machine in an electrically rewritable ROM such as a flash memory or flash card, to realize the various functions.
According to this proposed composite apparatus, when modifying or adding the function, the program of the modified or added function is recorded in the flash card as updating data, and the composite apparatus is restarted in a state where this flash card is inserted into a flash card interface of the composite apparatus.
In this state, the composite apparatus reads the updating data from the flash card by an updating program, and the program recorded in the flash card is rewritten by the updating data. Hence, in this proposed composite apparatus, the ROM is updated by utilizing the characteristic of the electrically rewritable flash memory.
For example, a Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-268306 proposes a technique for flexibly coping with the software modification or addition.
On the other hand, an image forming apparatus having a platform was proposed in a Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2002-82806. The proposed image forming apparatus uses hardware resources such as the display section, the printing section and the image pickup section, and is provided with a plurality of application programs (hereinafter simply referred to as applications) for carrying out processes peculiar to each user service of the printing apparatus, the copying machine and the facsimile machine. The platform is interposed between the applications and the hardware resources. The platform includes various control services for managing the hardware resources which are commonly required by at least two applications, controlling execution and carrying out an image forming process, when providing the user service. The user service refers to a service which is related to the image forming apparatus and is provided with respect to the user. On the other hand, the control service refers to a service which provides a hardware resource related to the image forming process with respect to the application.
According to the proposed image forming apparatus, the platform manages the hardware resources which are commonly required by at least two applications, controls the execution and carries out the image forming process. Hence, it is possible to more easily develop the software for future modification or addition of the applications compared to the conventional composite apparatus, and the functions of the composite apparatus can be expanded with more ease. For this reason, in the proposed image forming apparatus, the need to update the ROM depending on the modification or addition of the function is extremely high compared to that of the conventional composite apparatus.
For example, only the functions of the printing apparatus, the copying machine and the scanner may originally be used under the terms of a rental contract of the composite apparatus, but the terms of the rental contract may be changed later to allow the functions of the facsimile machine to be used. In such a case, the facsimile application must be added and the addition or modification of the platform becomes necessary due to the addition of the facsimile function.
In the case of the composite apparatus having the platform which carries out the plurality of applications and the common processes, the request to modify or add the functions may occur both irregularly and frequently. Hence, in the case of the conventional program updating method which acquires a flash card every time the program updating process is carried out, and rewrites the program stored in the ROM by reading the updating data from the flash card, it is impossible to quickly cope with the needs for the program updating process which occurs irregularly and frequently. In addition, the program updating method using the flash card requires an extremely troublesome operation to carry out the program updating process, and there is a problem in that the operation efficiency of the program updating process is poor.
The composite apparatus provides composite services including services of the copying machine, the printing machine, the scanner and the facsimile machine. However, the services that can be provided by the composite apparatus is not unified for all the models of the composite apparatus. For example, some models of the composite apparatus may have all of the functions of the copying machine, the printing machine, the scanner and the facsimile machine, while other models may only have some of the functions such as the facsimile and copy functions. For this reason, the plurality of control services and the plurality of applications operating on a general purpose operating system (OS) naturally differ depending on the functions that may be provided by the composite apparatus.
But according to the conventional composite apparatus, when the flash card is inserted into the composite apparatus as described above and the power of the composite apparatus is turned ON, the updating program is executed immediately without starting the applications and the control services. Consequently, it is impossible to recognize the configuration of the composite apparatus, and there is a problem in that the programs cannot be updated accurately depending on the configuration of the composite apparatus.
For example, assume that a certain composite apparatus has a configuration such that no programs related to the facsimile communication, such as the facsimile application and the facsimile control service, are provided. If the program updating process is carried out with respect to this certain composite apparatus using the flash card which stores the updating data for all programs, there is a possibility that a program within the ROM which does not need to be updated is updated by the program updating process. In this case, the updating of the program which does not need to be updated may generate a failure in the composite apparatus.
Moreover, the technique proposed in the Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2001-268306 uses a device connected via a predetermined network to acquire and execute a program executed by a multi-function peripheral device, and does not update a program.